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Old 06-22-2007, 09:20 PM   #17 (permalink)
Willravel
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
 
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Right now? Me. Politics isn't about modeling yourself after other people. It can be about recognizing a better philosophy or perspective and adding it to your own, but at the end of the day you need another you to represent you. The idea would be to search out the candidate most like you and go vote. If you can't find anyone, create one by trying to change the minds of those in power or run yourself.

Nader is an inconsistent hero, having terrible problems and brilliant ideas at once. I find 2004 Green Presidential nominee David Cobb to be an interesting man. This is an interview he gave in October 2004: http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10042004.html
In it he explains how he would have removed the troops from Iraq in a 5 week period (very similar to my stance at the time), repealed the Patriot act, created a single-payer universal healthcare program, and end the 'war on drugs'. He wanted DC statehood, and to hold up our treaties with Native Americans. He called for a 50% budget cut to the Pentagon over a ten year period, and those extra funds would have gone into the development of alternative energy resources. He called for the end of commercial logging on public lands (something I support STRONGLY). He obviously wanted an end to the stupid ballot restrictions that had kept Nader off, kept him off, and have solidified the two party system's hold for years. He believed in some form of reparations, which is bold.

These are all brilliant statements and the fact that this man was Green meant that he was less likely to have long standing agreements that would compromise him in office. No oil ties. No military contractor ties. No corporate ties.

I regret voting for Badnarik. I should have voted for Cobb.

Getting back, I'd name Author Rachel Carson, Al Gore (he's a Green masquerading as a Dem for votes as much as Ron Paul is a Constitutionalist masquerading as a Republican), artist Ansel Adams, and Henry David Thoreau as heroes of the Green movement. Really, though, there are numerous unnamed people who do work every day to preserve the earth and who lead the movement for peace. It's they who are the heroes.

/threadjack
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